Hard-rocking country star Jason Aldean plays DeSoto Civic Center
Jason Aldean returns to the mothership this week.
The fast-rising country singer is taking a break from the near non-stop touring he’s been doing since he released his third album, Wide Open, last spring to head back home to Nashville for tonight's CMA Awards.
“It’s a circus,” Aldean says of the hoopla that surrounds Music City’s biggest awards show. “You got rehearsals and dress rehearsals, and you go and do a bunch of radio interviews. And we’re doing some CMT stuff. And GAC. It’s just a couple of days of craziness. The day of the show it’s great because you don’t have anything going on but the show.”
Jason Aldean
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Aldean, who is nominated for favorite male country artist at the American Music Awards later this month, curiously is not up for any awards Wednesday night. Instead, the Georgia native and his band will do what they seem to do best: Perform, in this instance a version of their current hit “Big Green Tractor.”
“I’d much rather perform, to tell you the truth, even though it can be nerve racking going out and performing before your peers. I remember the first time I went out to play on a show like that, you walk out and George Strait’s looking at you and you wonder, ‘What in the heck is going on right now?’” Aldean says. “It’s really strange to me still.”
Strait was one of the artists who first inspired Aldean to play music. A child of divorced parents, Aldean split his time between Georgia, where he lived with his mother, and his father’s place in Florida. Music ran on both sides of the family, but early on the motivation to play came from Aldean’s desire to connect with his father.
“My dad and uncle played and sang, and I originally wanted to learn to play guitar so I could spend time with them,” he remembers. “It eventually turned into me kind of taking over a little bit whenever we got together and me showing my dad and uncle how to play stuff on guitar.”
By the time he was a teenager, Aldean was playing before audiences in area VFW halls and at fairs. When his baseball aspirations evaporated in high school, he turned his attention full-time to music. He formed a band and began touring around the Florida-Alabama-Georgia region. When he was 21-years-old, he made the move to Nashville and, after several disappointing experiences with labels, landed at the independent Broken Bow Records.
“It was tough. You get signed and before you even get to make a record you get dropped. A couple of other times, a deal would be offered, and before I could even sign people would get fired and the deal would go away,” recalls Aldean. “Being at Broken Bow, where I’ve kind of assumed the role of their flagship artist, I get more attention that I would have. I’ve had more success there than I would have anywhere else.”
Aldean’s third record for Broken Bow has already gone gold and spawned two consecutive No. 1 hits, including “Big Green Tractor.” The success is a return to form for Aldean, who admits he was spooked following the multi-platinum success of his eponymous debut in 2005.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself going into the second album (2007’s Relentless),” he says. “Honestly, I didn’t have a whole lot of fun recording that album. I was so worried about continuing the success we had started on the first record.”
On the new record, Aldean and his producer Michael Knox took a more carefree approach, opting not to worry about trying to pick hits and instead focusing on having a good time in the studio.
“My goal for making albums is to find 10 or 12 songs that I think are great songs and put ’em down,” he says. “I don’t really look at it any other way than just trying to find the best songs I can find.”
Hot on the heels of the album, in August Aldean also released his first concert DVD, Wide Open Live & More, which points to the other secret of 32-year-old’s rapid success — his energetic live shows that confirm his band’s reputation as one of the hardest rocking country outfits on the road.
“We don’t have a fiddle or steel guitar in our band. It’s two guitars, bass, drums, and I’m on acoustic. So it’s about as rock as it gets, but I think it’s still country at the same time,” Aldean says. “I love country music the most, but I also grew up listening to the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Guns N’ Roses and stuff like that. … I think it’s a combination of all that stuff that kind of creates the sound that we have.”
Jason Aldean with Eric Church and Love And Theft
7 p.m. Saturday at the DeSoto Civic Center, 4560 Venture Dr., Southaven. Tickets: $24.50, $29.50, and $34.50, available at the box office and through Ticketmaster. For more information, call (662) 470-2131 or visit desotociviccenter.com.
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